PACIFIC WORLD - The Institute of Buddhist Studies

Studstill: Cybernetic Approach to Dzogchen 353points out that Dzogchen practice promotes a “self-centering” processfundamentally different from ordinary Ωamathå/vipåΩyana practices,which are “object-oriented” and therefore perpetuate a dualistic frameof reference. 201CYBERNETICS AND DZOGCHENAs noted above, an adequate understanding of Dzogchen requiresmore than a descriptive approach to its doctrines and practices. It requiresan additional step: its doctrines and practices have to be interpreted inorder to understand how they impact and possibly transform the consciousnessof the practitioner. This final section of the article focuses on thisissue using the cybernetic model of consciousness described in part one. Itreviews in turn various processes and variables of the cognitive system,and then considers how specific aspects of the Dzogchen path might effectthose variables.A core variable of the cognitive system is the set of unconsciousperceptual constructs that provide the template for the “world” as ordinarilyexperienced—both the background dimensions of experience (forexample, spatial and temporal orientation and the concept of substance) aswell as the focal aspects of the perceptual field, e.g., “objects,” “persons,”and “self.” Certain aspects of Dzogchen doctrine and/or practice mayfunction to undermine these constructs and so destabilize the cognitivesystem by presenting views of the world that counter the taken-for-grantedassumptions and perceptions of ordinary experience. This may occur inone of two basic ways: (1) by internalizing concepts that conflict with theconstructs of the cognitive system, and (2) analytical methods intended todirectly deconstruct reifying projections. In the first sense, Buddhism hasa long tradition of considering this world (especially the self and “things”in the world) as illusory, in direct opposition to the presupposition ofordinary experience that the objects of perception are real. In the secondsense, Buddhism also encompasses philosophical traditions (abhidharmaand Madhyamaka) that seek to analytically deconstruct the mind’sordinary reifying tendencies. For the Mahåyåna, this is particularlyreflected in the doctrine of emptiness, which Dzogchen (as a Mahåyånatradition) inherits.Evaluative constructs are another important aspect of the conceptualinventory that generates ordinary experience. The experience of an “object”as either desirable or repellant is ordinarily caused by the semanticovertones of safety and belonging, or abandonment and death associatedwith that object and rooted in unconscious evaluative constructs. Dzogchendoctrine and practice constitutes a sustained challenge to evaluative constructs,thereby undermining the cognitive system as a whole. In terms of